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You need to make more money. Now. SpringRaise is ready to help you win your salary negotiation. I can and will help you achieve an extraordinary raise–what we call a springraise–FREE. I’m about to make you an offer you can’t refuse. In essence, I’m going to pay you to join the world’s first and only salary negotiation community. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Need proof I know what I’m doing? Check out my career salary progression–I’ve averaged 16% annual salary increases over the years.

I haven’t just helped myself make more money. I’ve helped my clients make an EXTRA $1 million in compensation over the last three years. That’s $1 million MORE than what my clients were offered and doesn’t include how much was in their initial offer. Let me help you win your salary negotiation. I’m going to get you paid more than what you’re offered for FREE. What do you have to do? Join The SpringRaise Community.

The SpringRaise Network – We Pay YOU to Join

We’ve just launched the alpha release of the world’s first salary negotiation community. But let me cut to the chase and tell you how WE PAY YOU to join:

You join the site and fill out your profile, we help you win your salary negotiation for FREE.

Like I said, we’re paying you to join and fill out your profile by getting you more money than you would have received through master negotiation advice from us. I’ve never offered my consultation for free. Take advantage.

What is The SpringRaise Community?

The SpringRaise Salary Negotiation Community is the world’s first and only community dedicated to helping you negotiate your salary to make extraordinary raises (what we call “springraises”) either in your same company or when you join a new company. We’re here to make you more money. Period.

What Do I Get for Joining The SpringRaise Community?

What do you get for joining SpringRaise? Great question. Check out all we have to offer NOW to our charter (alpha) members:

1. Join The SpringRaise Community and we’ll give you our paid salary negotiation guides FREE when you fill out your profile. These guides accomplish one thing: they show you the data you NEED so that employers can’t say no to your salary requests. Get Paid* focuses on salary negotiation when joining a new company and Raise Up! focuses on negotiating raises at your current company. We have sold hundreds of these guides and are offering them for free for the first time.

2. Get FREE consultation time with experts from SpringRaise on how to win your salary negotiation. We charge our clients thousands for this service and you will get time free when you fill out your profile.

3. Joining is FREE for alpha members like you. The SpringRaise Network may not always be free to join, but alpha members get lifetime free membership. Join now and you will enjoy access to customized content, expert advice, and you’ll get paid so you can live a better life.

4. You can anonymously invite others to join the alpha SpringRaise Community and their memberships will be FREE for life as well. Invite the people whose salaries you want to compare to so you can see where you stand. Invite colleagues you work with or your friends that you think could benefit from learning how to negotiate salary for higher raises.

This is what is at the heart of the SpringRaisevision-–placing YOU at the heart of your career and salary development, not employers. SpringRaise has come for you to maximize your salary over the course of your career, period.

Join Now!

Now you can see why SpringRaise has unlimited potential to help you negotiate salary throughout your career. We’re just starting out and you can be part of that ascension while helping yourself win your current negotiation. Join Now at http://alpha.springraise.com and you will instantly increase your ability to win. We’re here for you. Join Now!

Here’s something to think about regarding the employment and compensation market. 65% of all requests to SpringRaise for salary negotiation help in the last 30 days came from people who were offered new jobs. 35% were from people looking to negotiate salary at their current jobs.

This data will be interesting to watch over time as the job market continues to improve. Are you more willing to negotiate salary in your current job or when you’ve been offered a new job?

Happy New Year everyone! As a major part of your total compensation, salary is the component that is what you get paid on your paycheck. There are many factors that influence your salary–some which are warranted, and others which may be a bit more controversial or subtle. At SpringRaise, we’re here to help you get the highest salary possible at every event throughout your career, whether it’s a raise, a promotion, changing jobs, or other opportunity to maximize your salary.

I’ve had many “springraises” throughout my career–raises in excess of 10% and even sometimes more than doubling my salary. Check out the chart below to see my career compensation development. After that, we’ll show you the seven factors that impact salary in your career.

Amazing! I can show you how to get these types of raises throughout your career.

The Seven Factors That Influence Your Salary

To orient you with the way salaries are evaluated by employers, here are the seven factors–and some would be considered discrimination. We hold nothing back here at SpringRaise.

1. Salary and Education. How educated you are matters in your salary.
2. Salary and Gender. Right or wrong, it has been documented that men often make more than women for the same job.
3. Salary and Weight. This would be considered discrimination by law, but your weight can influence how others perceive you and your value.
4. Salary and Years of Experience. How long you’ve been in the workforce and/or in your particular industry matters.
5. Salary Band. Where you are in your company’s salary band can influence your next raise amount.
6. Peer Salary. What your colleagues make can definitely influence how much you get paid. Knowing what they make is a big factor.

And last, but most importantly…
7. Salary Negotiation. How well you negotiate at performance reviews or for new jobs can make a major impact on your lifetime earnings.

We at SpringRaise want you to know the seven salary influence factors so that you can manipulate them to your advantage. Spend some time here and you’ll find a wealth of information that can help you make more money now and throughout your career.

For FREE sample salary negotiation letters, just fill out the form below with the subject “Salary” and we’ll send them to you right away.

It’s very clear that people have questions about when and how they should or can justify asking for a raise. Money is tight and companies are often telling employees that they’re lucky they have a job. That’s terrible, but happens every day. I recently answered a question on Yahoo Answers specifically about when a person should ask for a raise in her situation.

Here’s the question:

I was written up for the first time in my life at the beginning of this year. The probation period lasted through our reviews so I was denied a raise at that point. Since then, I have done a 360 turn-around with very few mistakes. And, they have added five new processes to my workload. I am so busy at work I can barely breathe. I am not the only one who wants a raise either but I have been here 4 years and we were part of a bigger corp when I joined, now we’re separate. (Because we were part of a bigger corp they denied raises for three years.)

So basically, I’ve never received any pay increase. My co-workers make at least a $1.00 more an hour than me and that would significantly help me.

But, I am afraid of my boss. She is very very very very very….what’s the word, stern? I think a better word choice is stubborn and stuck-up. She may just tell me “No, Im not going to ask HR.”

That leads me to wonder if I should go straight to HR? But, that would be breaking the chain of command which I’ve been taught never to do, due to my military background.

Thanks for any advice! Emails won’t work, she hates when I email her.

And here’s my response:

I recently wrote a blog post about this called The Top 5 Situations When You Should Ask For A Raise. By your explanation above, you match 3 of them:
Situation #1: Anytime you get significantly increased responsibility. If someone leaves your department and you have to pick up the slack, then you have an opportunity to ask for a raise. Do NOT ask for a raise right away, though. Show that you can do both jobs and then ask. You will have a better chance of getting the raise you want if you prove yourself.

Situation #3: If you’re a performer and you haven’t had a raise in more than two review cycles. This situation is tenuous because you may not have received a raise because of poorer performance. If you know that you’re a strong performer (be honest with yourself), then you should have confidence in asking for a raise.

Situation #5: When you hear about someone in your same job making more money than you. This is a political play that often works, but not always. When you see others who are doing your same job, but make more than you do and you’re a strong performer, you can justify asking for a raise.

Since you have been on probation in the past, that’s a negative–but it can play for you because you’ve made such a turnaround. Show the success of your projects and the how the volume of your workload has increased. I have some free sample salary negotiation letters that may help you.

OK, this is one of my secrets that I’m going to share with you. One thing everyone wants to know is how much of a jump in compensation should we get when we change jobs? There is a certain art to this, but there is a process that I use. My father told me when I was starting out that I shouldn’t change jobs unless the offer is 20% higher than my current compensation.

Salary Increase Benchmark
My father does deals for a living, so I’ve learned from a pretty good teacher about salary increases. In taking his lessons to heart, not accepting what someone tells me at face value, why take his word that 20% is enough? I didn’t. Over the course of my career, when I’ve changed jobs, my average increase in compensation is 30% and on average I’ve increased my salary 16% per year.

What people tend to forget when looking for their next career move is that the company we just interviewed with spent thousands of dollars just to get us in that chair. That’s an investment they’re not keen to lose when they find a candidate they covet. That knowledge immediately swings negotiations in our favor. Have confidence and get the salary you deserve!

For FREE sample salary negotiation letters, just fill out the form below with the subject “Max” and we’ll send them to you right away.

I was recently promoted and kept my old pay rate for a while. I did not want to ask my boss for a raise until I was more adept at my new position. One day he gave me a 2$ per hour raise. The previous man before me was on salary and had less experience and less education than me. I was looking for about a 5$ per hour raise, which would keep me off salary and still make me much cheaper than the man I am replacing. I am now pretty good at what I do and I also help the older employees with most of their tech problems, saving a call to the expensive IT guy. How do I ask the boss for more pay since he already hit me with the preemptive raise?

Here was my response:

Having another offer is good, but not necessary. Having received a pre-emptive raise is good and shows that they recognize that you should have been paid more. To get to the $5/hour raise you want, however, you have to do some justifying. 1. Show how your projects have been as successful or more so than your predecessor. There’s a format you can use that I have in my free salary negotiation letters guide. 2. You should also know what the range is for wages at your position for both hourly and salaried positions if there are both. Know this before going in to the discussion w/ your manager or sending the letter asking for the raise. 3. You have to show what’s in it for the manager. How can the manager look good by actually paying you more? If you figure that out, then it will go a long way toward you getting what you want. Overall, you may not get the full $5/hour raise, but you might get another $1 or $1.50 on top of the $2 you already got. That’s a great negotiation outcome.

Let me know what you think. In my experience, this is a great way to get more than the raise you received. Get FREE Salary Negotiation Letters! Fill out the form below.

Something happened to me a while back that should never, ever happen while searching for a job. After going through two days of intense interviews with a top flight strategy consulting firm, I got a job offer. No, I’m not saying I shouldn’t have received the offer because I performed well. What happened that shouldn’t have is that the compensation package was $20K more than I expected!

Don’t get me wrong, these are the kinds of “should never happens” that you want to have, but there is no way I or anyone else should be that far apart in expectation of compensation. I had done my homework. I used one of the “salary” company’s information; it’s almost useless for consultants because of the nature of the business. The range in pay was about $70,000. Not helpful. I also checked in with my network of consultants to see what the market was like these days. I was an analyst with a top firm back in the day and still had a few friends in the industry. What I found intriguing was that although my friends gave detailed descriptions of the direction of the consulting industry (full of needless jargon, I might add) none of them gave me a decent picture of compensation. They kept it vague, describing “compensation structures”, “percent raises”, “payment timing”. None of them said, “I make $X and you’ll probably be in a range from $A to $B.” That’s what I asked for.

Why wouldn’t these friends share their info? Then it dawned on me–when I was working for a major Fortune 500 company, I never shared my compensation with my peers. The HR department and managers directly discouraged me from sharing this information. They set up this “cloud of secrecy” about revealing compensation to peers. They said things like, “trust me, you’re one of the highest paid at your position,” or “you don’t want to cause a stir in morale by sharing your salary with others on the team,” or “your compensation information is proprietary company information.” The last one always made me snicker.

What’s the big secret? We all know that some people get paid more than others. Is this data confidential? Would I be committing corporate treason by letting my colleagues know how much I made? Absolutely not. The issue is that the threat of losing your job is a profound motivator for silence. Companies don’t want employees (at any level) to demand upward pressure on compensation.

The reality is that managers and employees can keep each other accountable by revealing pay for themselves and team members. Team productivity can foster healthy competition. Managers can motivate the team by showing that other performers are compensated for success. That way, there are no secrets–and people can feel motivated by the openness rather than threatened by the cloud of secrecy.

Props to GlassDoor.com for leading the way by publishing all employee salaries.

For FREE sample salary negotiation letters, just fill out the form below with the subject “FREE SNL” and we’ll send you your samples instantly!

About a week ago I saw this question pop up on Yahoo Answers and thought I could answer it.

I got a job offer. They gave me the lowest range on the pay scale and said they can’t do anything about it. They didn’t give me the chance to negotiate. Is this fair?

I wasn’t the first to respond and the answers from those who did were shocking.

Of course it is fair. You have the option of declining the offer and find a job somewhere else.
Why you think life is fair should be addressed.

and this…

yep it’s fair, do you want the job or not? if you don’t there’s probably 100 others who would take the job today.

In their defense, of course it’s fair for an employer to imply that they don’t want to negotiate the offer. But check out my response to see how I approached the situation with a slightly skewed perspective:

Salary is ALWAYS negotiable. How you negotiate, however, is in your hands. Sure, you can simply ask for more money but you’ll get the answer you got back. Here’s what you do:

If the offer is in writing already and doesn’t have an exploding date, just sit on it for a few days. When they call you because they haven’t heard from you, say you’re excited about the offer but you’re waiting for other offers to come in to compare. They don’t know whether you have other offers coming in or not but there’s a threat that they might lose you. What that will do is force them to set an exploding date for your offer because they don’t want to lose you and they want to pressure you to accept. This is fine, and really what you want.

From here you say that you’re excited about the opportunity, but times are tough and if you can get a higher offer you have to give yourself that option. They’ll likely understand that. Even if they’re hardcore about it and say something like “take it or leave it” you can then ask again for more money. Say something like “X amount will get me to YES and I will accept the offer today.” I’ve done this exact thing and it works. Just don’t be outrageous with the amount you’re asking in addition to what they offered. 5% – 7% is a good rule of thumb.

That is negotiating. There’s one golden rule in recruiting that employers don’t want you to know: It’s cheaper for them to hire you at a higher rate than they offered than it is for them to continue to look for candidates. You have that golden rule on your side. Good luck!

This (obviously) got the Best Answer rating from the questioner. The moral of the story is don’t listen to people who are negative and say something can’t be done. You can negotiate salary and sweeten your own offer without hurting your chance of getting the job.

For FREE sample salary negotiation letters, just fill out the form below with the subject “Right” and we’ll send them to you right away.

I have a google alert for “ask for a raise” because many people are entering the process of salary negotiation. In the past two weeks, I’ve had more than two dozen alerts hit my inbox. This is about double what I see for that particular alert over a similar time period. People need money, and they need it now.

It begs the question, when should someone ask for a raise? Is there ever a good time when it’s not part of the performance management cycle? How should you go about asking for the raise? These are valid questions and I have some rule of thumb answers that can help.

Question: When is a good time to ask for a raise (outside of the performance management cycle)?

Situation #1: Anytime you get significantly increased responsibility. If someone leaves your department and you have to pick up the slack, then you have an opportunity to ask for a raise. Do NOT ask for a raise right away, though. Show that you can do both jobs and then ask. You will have a better chance of getting the raise you want if you prove yourself.

Situation #2: Anytime you have an offer for another job whether it’s an internal move or to a new company. At that point you have leverage. If you’re good, they’ll want to keep you, so you can leverage the offer even if it’s even or only slightly higher than what you make now. It’s expensive to recruit and hire a replacement so it’s cheaper to give you your raise.

Situation #3: If you’re a performer and you haven’t had a raise in more than two review cycles. This situation is tenuous because you may not have received a raise because of poorer performance. If you know that you’re a strong performer (be honest with yourself), then you should have confidence in asking for a raise.

Situation #4: When your team wins a company award. These are the times to ask, but it’s usually a setup for your performance review. When the team wins an award, then you have recognition on your side. Your boss will be basking in getting the award, so it’s a good time to ask.

Situation #5: When you hear about someone in your same job making more money than you. This is a political play that often works, but not always. When you see peers doing your same job, but make more than you do and you’re a strong performer, you can justify asking for a raise.

If you follow these guidelines, then you have a much better chance of getting your raise. If you want to see how to best negotiate your salary and the information you need where they can’t say no to your request, then check out our Salary Negotiation Guide.

For FREE sample salary negotiation letters, just fill out the form below with the subject “Top 5″ and we’ll send them to you right away.